skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
BMW started to include more configurable buttons. I think that is a good idea having the best of both worlds: Keys for the functions /you/ need most often, and not a ocean of keys for every possible thing.

Too often usability is sacrificed for design. White lights are not the worst in this sense. For example:
Audi has red lights, which, as some people believe, makes aggressive.
VW has blue lights. This is absolutely terrible, as the human eye can not focus blue very well. Extra fuzzy numbers!

The worst thing I ever saw in that regard was a rental: Light gray dashboard. I had to cover it with dark t-shirts, otherwise I wasn't able to see the road!
Yes, even people who are aware of the halting problem often misunderstand its implications. What Turing proved is that no algorithm -- in the sense of an effective procedure, that is guaranteed to return the correct answer in finite time on any input -- can solve the halting problem. But there is a critical difference between algorithms and heuristics. A heuristic is not guaranteed to do anything, but nonetheless, collections of heuristics can be assembled that can analyze properties of programs in many cases of actual interest.

The distinction between algorithms and heuristics is, in my opinion, insufficiently appreciated. For example, the very phrase "genetic algorithms" is a contradiction in terms -- these are clearly heuristics, not algorithms.

Anyway, back to your point, we who are still selling static analysis -- I'm not sure why you used the past tense there; it's a growing business -- find that people who don't understand the halting problem at all are perhaps as much a source of difficulty as those who are aware of it but don't understand its implications. The latter group are skeptical that our products can work at all, but the former are often baffled and indignant that the products don't understand properties of their code that seem obvious. (The fact that analysis often takes a long time and needs large amounts of RAM also surprises some people.)

But I think the world is gradually coming to understand what static analysis can and can't do. It's an education process and will take time.
Small Business Expo Launches Interactive News Platform
Precisely because it's done without actually running the program. Dynamic analysis is where you do actually run the program.
I found and was reading this article just yesterday. What a coincidence! This article is great resource.
It doesn't analyse at runtime. It simulates certain runtime states but looks at the code at compile time. Since it analyses static code that is not changing, the term Static Analysis is used.
Thanks. I think we've gotta spend some time making the site less bootstrap like.
ya, thats a great idea. thanks! we'll put up the code on github sometime soon.
I think it is just the RAM. That said, I don't really care too much about the specs, since I do web dev remotely and for Android dev, I just need it to run Eclipse.
Limited Edition Steve Jobs Tribute MacBook
Precisely because it is not done at runtime not dynamically but statically: the goal is to verify properties of a given program without having to actually run it.
thanks a lot! :) we're excited about it too!
This rings true with my experience.

I met a senior NHS physician who built a very useful and simple mobile information service to improve access to certain services. My understanding was that he funded it himself with help from sponsors and had to do it entirely outside the NHS system.

It probably cost 1/10th of what it would have cost if it had been done through the NHS.

Not to mention that NHS computers are still running IE6 and heavily locked down, making it a poor development environment. Tim Kelsey can encourage NHS staff to code, but the infrastructure to do anything meaningful with that inside the system isn't there.

This is the service: http://sxt.org.uk
I've seen a lot of people complaining about build quality on the X1 Carbon ...

Problems that did not appear on the review units (which were likely pre-production runs)
No, I've got an older T-series model, but I'm considering upgrading. My opinions are mostly based on reviews I've read online.
The nice thing is that complete ThinkPads of the T60/T61 vintage with a decent battery, AC adapater, and HD still command a decent premium in the used market. Hell I got $175 for a T23 about a year ago.

The market is flush with system off corporate lease, but they rarely include the above items.
Perhaps a stupid question, but is the challenge not also solvable with 'honest' comp.sci?
The way I think about it at the moment, is that I take a family of functions, C_k, which map the space of n elements strings to the space of [1, 2n] element strings ( the union of m element strings for 0 > m > 2n) in a essentially random way. The output is then in [1, n - sizeof(C_k) -1] with some probability p and if I try long enough, I find a compression scheme which compresses the given input.
sure will!
It doesn't take place at runtime; that's kind of the point of the name. I suspect the static=compile time, dynamic=run time terminology comes from linking, in which context it makes more sense - the linkage of a "staticly linked" program really is static.
I have a ton of respect for Armin. Can't wait for this video to be posted.
I'm asking how he intends to scale his model.

Heh, as I alluded to in my reply to your other comment, for TweetingMachine at least, I have zero intent of scaling; tt's a small tool, and will remain a small tool (can't even remember if I've done any work on it in the whole of 2012) whilst I focus my energies elsewhere.

So, being quite so harsh was a means to an end. At the same time, if I experience abuse of any of my other services, it'll definitely be a marker I'll use for more manual investigation.
I know people on the London party scene who got these symptoms over ten years ago. I suspect that it wasn't until there was a culture of people taking large daily doses that this issue became prevalent, as it would be unlikely for this to happen either medically, or among those who were taking this as an occasional psychedelic. It takes chronic long term exposure for these symptoms to occur.
tl;dr: Changing land use is the only way to make transit of any kind more effective than private cars. Technological improvements that made point-to-point transit as effective as private cars are completely infeasible due to social and societal constraints. Self driving cars will be a feature for users but will NOT change or accomodate existing cities.

Point to point would be great, but it's really, really expensive and doesn't change the economics of land use.

Look at what cars cost. Most US cities have ~1 car per adult, and to average expensive cars and paid off cars, let's assume ~$5000 in payments per car per year, plus about that much for gas, maintenance, insurance, etc. So ~$10,000/adult per year.

Now assume with automated p2p 1 car can do the work of 10 private cars at the same vehicle cost. But barring some efficiency changes, operational costs would be the same as 10 cars, so each car would cost ~$55,000/yr. This means $5,500/adult, about half the cost of a private car - big savings!

For a city of 1M, assume 50K cars, and you need almost $3B/yr just for the cars, the whole organization (gov or private) would probably cost another $1B. $4B/yr would be a big savings over private vehicles and free up all the space used by parking.

Big caveats:

1) For reference, Nashville (~650K city, ~1.5M metro) had a mass transit budget of $60M, or about 1.5% of this back of the envelope budget. The entire municipal budget was $1.5B, or about 37% of this budget. This demonstrates that however beneficial such a system would be, it' would require a complete restructuring of government and society to shift that kind of spending into centralized transportation infrastructure.

2) These fairly affordable unit economics only work if everyone participates. But the system also only works if you continue to maintain the existing road network, which makes the switch from private cars that much more difficult to justify.

3) A p2p network is an attempt to get people who live in non-transit areas to use transit. But many (many many many) of those people live there specifically because they want privacy and seclusion from other people, so any kind of transit system is wrong on principle.
yess! the algorithm allows for a hue replacement allowing for smooth color changes even in gradients.
First Sentence of the article: "What will the 2025 BMW be like? Know one knows for sure, which means your guess is more valid than you might thing." I know grammar isn't everything but two major typos before I even get into the article. How am I supposed to begin taking this seriously when I can barely read it.
From Inside Secret FBI Terrorist Screening Room to TrapWire Training
I got mine from Element 14 / Newark in 3 days over a weekend (they tied Amazon Prime for the SDHC card it's running on). So things are getting better in the US for RPi availability.
Uh oh. Afraid that quote is a hobbyhorse of mine. There's no evidence Gandhi said it; it is commonly traced back to a garment workers' activist in 1914:

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. [1]

But the general idea goes back at least to 1868, in a lecture by one J. Marion Sims, "the father of American gynecology" [2]:

For it is ever so with any great truth. It must first be opposed, then ridiculed, after a while accepted, and then comes the time to prove that it was not new, and that the credit of it belongs to some one else. [3]

The latter formulation is more commonly misattributed to Schopenhauer [4]. Lots of people have looked at this, so I'm surprised someone managed to trace the quote back so much further. It would be fun to know who figured that out.

[1] http://books.google.ca/books?id=QrcpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA53&...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims

[3] http://books.google.com.au/books?id=cHQCAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA2...

[4] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer#Disputed
The answer usually provided was "yes, your program has bugs" to which people objected theoretically. "Look, we found a bug." "My theory says you didn't." Followed quickly by the prize winning "that's not a bug."
Comparing Facebook, Twitter, and Google's First TV Commercials
He specifically addresses this on his website. He doesn't have good tools or much space either. He used to do these things in his bedroom at his parents house because his dad wouldn't let him use the garage.
I think, I exemplify what you find fickle. In my humble opinion, Apple does a lot of stuff. Jobs would filter out the ugly and stupid, so Apple appeared a lot cooler than some random fortune 500 company.

I'm skeptical of Apple ever regaining a filter like that. I think, they'll lumber around for a few years while their products lose mystique. It's not that their products are much different than android, it's that Apple will lose its super cool image by doing things like suing samsung.

Mr Jobs put a great image on the company. In an age where dell would make you sit on hold for hours, then do a dance where you replace certain parts, Apple would just send you a new one. Being hassle free in an age of hassle is just one example.
Four million hotel locks vulnerable to 'Dry erase marker'
That sounds really nice. I must try J.
Is that the only reason you wouldn't use it? ;)
You cannot remove the interface from a human-machine interaction. A doorknob is an interface too.

What you can strive for is interfaces that are so intuitive and easy to use that you don't need to fight them or rtfm.

Great UI designers know how to do this.
That would be more of an essay - which would certainly be valuable, but takes a considerable amount of time.
- owner approaches car

- owner puts hand in pocket

- owner grabs keys

- owner removes keys from pocket

- owner finds car key

- owner inserts key into lock

- key engages pins in lock

- owner applies torque and turns the key

- pins allow tumbler to turn

- electronics detect turned lock

- lock disengages

- owner turns key back

- owner removes key

- owner puts key in pocket

- owner opens door

- owner enters vehicle
Watts is not a useful measure of visibility for humans, I would hope they're using lumens. Unless it's safe to assume that it reflects very similar amounts of visible light to the moon, but I don't know if that's the case.
As I wrote above, I did change my home page. In at least 5 years of Mac/Safari-use I have never bothered to change my home page before, even though I don't particularly care for seeing Apple advertising every time I open a new window. I'm just lazy that way. But having music (even beautiful music) play unbidden through my speakers every time I open a new window has forced me to make the change. Naturally (being lazy) I'm not going to change it back tomorrow, either.

And that's precisely the point I'm making: no matter how classy the video is, this is a minor mis-step for Apple, because I'm surely not the only one who will be annoyed enough to change my homepage.

And each person who changes their homepage as a result of this is one more person who won't see what Apple wants them to see every time they open up a browser window.
It's not that you can't solve the halting problem--- it's that you can't always solve the halting problem. Sometimes (such as when you're building things that can explode or kill people) you'll settle for an overly conservative approximation to the halting problem (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis). You'll reject some programs which are OK but anything which passes your analysis will be guaranteed to halt.
Except Lisp...that's what hackers use or something :P
I suspect part of the reason he got in trouble for the scooter is that neither did he. ;)
This is making me seriously consider investing some time learning J.
In the event of Sept. 10, however, the hardware was not able to fit the entire forwarding table, which was 210x their normal routes into the FIB memory, and the routers fell back to "software switching mode."

Why was the entire forwarding table 210x their normal routes? Is that a normal expansion due to the exponential nature of a fully (or substantially) connected graph or did something Very Bad happen and GoDaddy effectively DOSed their forwarding tables?

If (a), then GoDaddy missed the fact that they had nearly exhausted their FIB table physical size. This is easy to do and understandable.

If (b), they the article has not come clean why they had a massive, unexpected forwarding table size increase.
Jobs wasn't a hacker; I don't think he ever saw or portrayed himself as one of us. The appliances he was best known for were (and are) more and more actively hostile to hackers. I don't revel in his absence but it did dial back the biggest current threat to the independence of our profession.

I don't understand why we're saddled with a few hundred people who conspired to kick this community in the nuts for a day and a night as some kind of self-flagellating tribute, but I don't consider them my peers. If I were pg for a day I'd stop counting votes from anyone who upvoted three dozen clones of the same wire story with almost no accompanying discussion.
Hmm, could you give some examples of these 'abominable class names'?
Neat find. From the reading the abstract it seems that the key finding wasn't so much predicting depression (it just confirmed a correlation with the Hamilton Scale - in real life it would be easier just to use the Hamilton Scale itself, no need for expensive imaging and the subsequent ML analytics).

The key finding seemed to be predicting whether or not treatment would be successful. This is quite powerful as it would help guide clinicians in figuring out whether or not a specific treatment regimen would be advisable or just a waste of time (and time is critical in treating depression).

Very interesting.
>> Amusing LSAT trivia: Physics and math majors are the highest scoring group on the LSAT, followed by philosophy and religion majors.

Philosophy majors are surprising high on the "Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary" list (http://www.payscale.com/2008-best-colleges/degrees.asp), with a mid-career median ahead of every other major without a direct technology application.
Just to clarify, the guy made a contest that he knew, statistically, could not be won except if the random data file he produced just happened to be compressible (due to luck alone).

In other words, he knowingly accepted money in a contest of chance not a contest of skill. So this contest (assuming either participant was in the US at the time) violated federal and state laws against unlicensed gambling operations, correct? [Assuming Mike Goldman did not possess a license to operate an online casino in 2001]
Unless I'm too senile, I will.

Gladwell's writings are (if nothing else) extremely popular and extremely enjoyable to read. We remember content from 50 years ago that wasn't half as good.
Especially since there are 24 circling the earth that send out time continuously.
Because anyone who can't do this almost certainly doesn't have the ability to program any software system well, some shitty web app or otherwise. You're not trying to fill out a remedial CS course in community college, you're trying to get someone to program real things real people use.

The only way this question wouldn't be useful is if you had a good filter such that almost everyone who gets to that point would answer that question correctly. But apparently, this is not the case. There are people who fail such tests (despite apparently good paper qualifications and ability to talk BS). It's fairly important that you not let through such imposters.

And yes I've hired people and all of them have had to answer much more complex algorithmic questions to get the job and all of them turned out to be competent. And "have you ever had to" questions are ingenuous - interview settings are never going to be replicated exactly in a work setting, unless your job is to go around to be interviewed for different jobs. Good interview questions don't simulate work setting - they extract most critical work-relevant information about the candidate without wasting time.
Facebook the Devourer
Yeah, that's what I got from the abstract too, I must be remembering the interview wrong. Odd.
I think to most people, Android feels more like a consumer electronics device than even OS X. Yes, Samsung Android is different than HTC Android, but only geeks care about that.

Intel is putting a lot of effort into making sure that Android runs well on Intel. As a side effect, stock Linux will run well, too, since the vanilla and Android Linux kernels are converging.
Why doesn't speculation decrease volatility like HFT reduces spreads?
I think the article is saying that the predicted magnitude of the comet is -16.
More on Remote View Controllers
Wait, you can depress rodents by subjecting them to "unpredictable stress"? That's really interesting, what does that mean exactly?
Are scientists lying more than ever?
this makes me sad

(and that i'm the first one to use the word "sad" in this thread makes me even more sad)
There are a few folks here who understand HFT and how it decreased the buy-sell spread. Why doesn't increased trading reduce volatility across time?
It is slightly more difficult to setup, but not that hard (Android SDK Manager takes care of most of it), and it is far better for development. Not just because it runs better but also because it Just Works with adb, ddms, without having to setup adb over network or such.
Experts troll 'biggest security mag in the world' with DICKish submission
What questions do you ask your candidates? How many candidates do you go through before making a single offer?
my immediate problem is getting to my intended destination tonight

Just in case you hadn't noticed, complaining about your inability to get to where you're going with your new maps app looks really whiny and entitled.

Go back just a few short years in human history and we didn't have any smartphones with maps and GPS, and you know what? people actually managed to find their destinations. Get some perspective.
Can you reset the Nest so it discards previous learnings and starts from scratch? Or, alternately, is there a kind of decay factor so that more recent settings, if they're consistent, override older settings?
Thanks for this. How wonderful would it be if all news articles were that informal, conversational and so clearly explained (and by consequence, highly interesting) as what you wrote. Again, thanks!
>To imply being 19 or age in general has anything to do with being vocal or a fan is agism.

It's also true.

>What makes zalew believe those posts where made by 19 year olds? Last time I checked, HN did not require age verification or disclosed such information about its members.

Most of the pages linked touting new technologies have an "about" page or a bio of the author.

Also, older devs have enough years of experience with other people --on the job, on the web, on conferences etc--, to know that it's mostly young developers that go crazy over such things.
This is a great post. I would love for some country to be founded on a direct representation concept and just let people directly vote for what they want instead of voting for a person who will tell you want you want to hear and then go do what gives them the most money/power. I can't see a way for it to happen though.
The One Feature I Still Want From My Smart Phone
Fight the MOOCopalypse
Your company is easy to find on Google. It's not stealth, and it's venture-funded. Curious why you can't or won't mention the name here.
Good rant. I draw the line at booty calls.
Sinatra is a lot closer to Node and Django than Rails in terms of philosophy. It's more minimalist, where you must assemble a lot of your environment rather than be issued one by default.

The missing 5% is mostly things that make your development process more effortless.

I've found that it's easy to get a first cut of an application out inside of two weeks with Rails, but you will probably need more time or lower expectations when working with something more limited like Django or Sinatra.

Since Rails imposes a lot of conventions, applications are easier to organize if you follow the rules. Sinatra is far more open to interpretation, so if you're not disciplined it can turn in to a bit of a mess.

I'm a big fan of the DRY principle and it's much easier to apply within Rails than in other environments. A lot of this relates to how Ruby is a lot easier to meta-program than other languages.
Mortar - Hadoop Python/Pig jobs on demand
"But please be careful when self-experimenting with possible nootropics."

I would also add "please be careful when following the advice of a physician."

In fact, I think it may be best to just say "Please be careful."
I'm a PHP developer (damn, this sounds like I only use PHP, but it's my favorite one). I really like PHP, it's easy to learn, easy to deploy, probably one of the most documented language. But let's be honest, all this easy stuff brings people with poor or no knowledge. Probably if ruby or python were easy as PHP to deploy, we probably would see lame ruby and python code too
That is the best online schematic tool I have ever seen, hands down. Bookmarking now.
That just seems highly irresponsible though - you are working on adrenaline and caffeine to get a product out so you can go away and be offline for a week right after. I've been in your shoes before, and tight deadlines can warrant the need to just get shit done - but I also make sure I am around after some brief rest to handle any additional issues.